Comey’s Cryptic Tweets Are Fueling Speculation That He’s Running

Former F.B.I. director James Comey’s pseudonymous Twitter account had remained dormant since its unmasking in March. But in recent days, his social media presence has sprung to life, with Comey posting a series of pictures in different scenic and historically significant American locales. On October 18, he was at West Point. A day later, he went to Gettysburg—a “good place to think about leadership and values,” he wrote. On Monday, Comey tweeted a photo of himself standing in the middle of a road, in Iowa, wearing running shoes and staring off into the distance. “Goodbye Iowa. On the road home,” Comey wrote. “Gotta get back to writing. Will try to tweet in useful ways.”

For trained Comeyologists, the symbolism was clear. Immediately, pundits, journalists, and others online began to speculate both seriously and not-quite-as-seriously about whether this was some sort of signal that Comey would be running for office.

Comey, who Donald Trump fired in May, is married to an Iowa native whose brother is a staffer for the Republican caucus in the Iowa Senate. He is currently working on a book about his career, but has not discussed future plans in the political arena. Earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee said it would no longer be pursuing information pertaining to the memos Comey had written about his conversations with Trump regarding the Russia investigation, about which he testified before Congress in June. “The committee is satisfied that our involvement with this issue has reached a logical end as it relates to the Russia investigation,” Senator Richard Burr, the Republican committee chairman, said. “Questions that you might have surrounding Comey’s firing are better answered by the general counsel or by the Justice Department.”